Free Stolen Honey by Nancy Means Wright

circumstances. Camille herself had gone with mixed emotions. Shep Noble had been her student—an average student, usually prepared, if not brilliantly. Rather narrow-minded, though, she’d noted in class discussion—like his ancestor.
    And this was the question in Camille’s mind: Should she should tell the Woodleaf family about the Perkey connection? Was it relevant? For Shep, she had discovered, was a descendant of William and Eleanor Perkey, who had done such irreparable harm to the state’s poor that their project had turned into a veritable holocaust. Shep Perkey Noble, alive, might have helped her; he might have had letters, documents, family stories to offer. She might even have persuaded him to write his paper about the eugenics project.
    And yet, when she’d invited him to remain after class for the purpose of interrogating him, and he’d stood before her desk looking handsome, confident, arrogant, like his maternal grandparents, she’d felt such an anger fill her throat that she could only mumble something incoherent about his latest quiz and quickly dismiss him.
    But who else would know about this connection? And who would kill for it—if indeed, that had been the case? The poor “degenerates” whom the grandparents had abused? The babies they had, in effect, denied life to? But the poor had no clout. They were mostly absorbed now into the general population; in hiding, like the Abenaki, who, in order to survive, for decades had been trying to assimilate themselves into the white majority.
    Yet the Abenaki of late, she’d read, had been emerging, protesting, asserting their ancient rights. Was Shep Perkey Noble’s death part of this protest? The notion seemed far-fetched. She would have to consider carefully before putting the Woodleaf-LeBlanc family at risk. After all, Donna was her student.
    “Professor Wimmet—are you free? Can I talk to you about my paper?” It was Sue Coletti, a plump, sweet-faced girl—overly conscientious.
    “Why not?” she said as the girl trotted alongside her. She’d been thinking abusive thoughts about the dead. She wanted to push them out of mind. “So what is it you were planning to write? This afternoon has blotted everything out of my head.”
    “Oh, yes, sad, wasn’t it? I know he was in your other section.” The girl, a declared lesbian, put a hand on the teacher’s sleeve.
    “The paper,” Camille reminded her, and hearing voices behind her, she pulled away and walked on faster.
    * * * *
    Donna rode her bike to the local Ben & Jerry’s. She didn’t want to see any of those college kids, not even Emily, who had offered to go with her to the service, but at the last minute had to help with a freshening cow.
    She’d sat in the balcony, seen the parents when they came in, looking tall, well groomed, grieved. It had broken her heart to see the mother suddenly slump into the pew, a handkerchief clutched to her face, the father patting her shoulder. That one gesture, the patting of the shoulder, was what destroyed Donna. She was suddenly drowning in tears—not for Shep so much, whom she didn’t know, really, but for the parents. She hardly saw or heard the rest of the service. As she stumbled down the stairs after the final benediction, someone grabbed her wrist and twisted it. It was Alyce Worthington. “You’ll have to live with this,” the girl said, looking hard into Donna’s eyes. And then, with a little push, she let her go. And Donna raced downtown to console herself with ice cream.
    It was no consolation. Her tears kept dripping into the plastic dish. She was getting up to leave when a voice spoke up. She knew that voice, jammed both fists into her eyes.
    “ ‘S’not worth it,” Leroy was saying, “you shouldna gone. Look.” He snatched up her hand when she tried to pick up her bowl. “He was an SOB. You know he was, he wasn’t worth your little finger. You can’t go mooning over ’im.”
    “I’m not mooning over him. That’s not why